


intertwined, your dream in mine

by disastermovie



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Autistic Goodsir, F/M, Happy Ending, Time Travel Fix-It, frostyfuntime2k19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21862900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disastermovie/pseuds/disastermovie
Summary: Harry isn’t sure how long he’s been staring through the opening of his tent, toward the horizon just visible between the tents ahead of him, when he recognizes the growing black speck in the center of his vision is Lady Silence.(Or: Silna finds Harry in the twilight.)
Relationships: Harry D. S. Goodsir/Lady Silence | Silna
Comments: 7
Kudos: 55
Collections: janky franky's frosty fun time 2k19





	intertwined, your dream in mine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day five of [Janky Franky's Frosty Funtime 2k19](https://frostyfuntime.tumblr.com/)! Today's prompt was **sundog**. Inspired by that scene in _Your Name_.
> 
> **Update:** and now with art by Zoe, which you should really [go reblog on Tumblr](https://spaceteenagers.tumblr.com/post/189798932876/i-found-you-her-cut-tongue-is-visible-as-) <3
> 
> Title from ["Shadows Passed" by Elephant Revival](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnPRKM_lhSk).

Harry isn’t sure how long he’s been staring through the opening of his tent, toward the horizon just visible between the tents ahead of him, when he recognizes the growing black speck in the center of his vision is Lady Silence.

He’d been staring for some time, eyes fixed to the light in the distance, as he re-acquainted himself with the simple act of breathing. The wind howls in time with his very own lungs. He’s reminded of himself as a boy, when the world grew too loud and too bright for his little head. His family learned to leave him be in those moments, while he rocked back and forth in some corner or other, gasping in air so fast that he made himself sick. His father would come to him, sometimes, and breathe with him; carefully adjust him, if his head banged something. A deep breath in through his nose, out through his mouth, the exercise repeated until he’d calmed.

The world still overwhelms Harry, but his father is now an ocean away and the wind is a sorry substitute for his low tones. He’s grown familiar with pushing his panic back in recent months, until his mind floats away from his body, the world’s rough edges turning soft and manageable. It’s the only way for him to escape, to run away from these horrible things and force his lungs to keep working. He still prefers the cozy, quiet spaces that he’d run to as a child. He’d always felt safe in those dark corners.

In the summer months, Nunavut is almost always filled with sunlight. It feels so unforgiving. The darkness, when it comes, is all-too fleeting for him to ever get a full night’s rest. Since he has nowhere to hide, Harry goes toward Lady Silence’s distant silhouette, leaving Gibson’s body to cool on the examination table.

The camp is empty as Harry leaves, so nobody stops him from walking toward the hallucination. By the time they reach each other, the perihelion that Lady Silence walked out of is at its most brilliant, and Harry’s legs feel separate from himself. Lady Silence is… different, from how he last saw her. Her braids are loosened, some coming undone so that wisps of dark hair move around her face in the wind. Her body moves in and out of focus, her edges softening, and her fleeting opaqueness reminds him of a daguerreotype held up to the light. She still feels more real, more grounded than Harry’s felt in months.

They regard each other for a few moments.

“I found you.” Her cut tongue is visible as she mouths the words. Her voice comes out in Inuktitut, but Harry understands her. “I was too late, then. But you’re still here.”

“I’m here,” Harry says. He thinks, _You’re not here, not really, but stay a little longer_. “You found me.”

She nods. Her eyes move over his face, as Harry’s gaze never leaves hers. “I didn’t think… It’s been so long. You were even paler, like snow. And so cold.” Her breath stutters; she takes a step closer and her feet make no sound. “Your nose is all red, now, and your cheeks. I forgot that you could look like this.”

“I’m still cold.”

Her voice is sharp when she says, “Not like that.” Then, in a softer tone, so quiet and _sad_ : “You should have never been that cold, Goodsir.”

There’s a sudden lurch in Harry’s chest when Lady Silence says his name, like his body has pulled his spirit back down inside of it. He can’t stop the tremor of his voice when he says, “Call me Harry.”

She blinks at him.

“We-” He thinks of the mutineer’s camp behind him. “I have more than one name. Harry is the first. I… Please. Call me that.” She only calls him such in his dreams like these.

Lady Silence’s eyes are wide and shining. “ _Harry_.” His name sounds holy when she says it.

Harry wants to cry. “I miss you so much.”

“I miss you, too,” she gasps, nearly a sob. There’s a line under her eyes that wasn’t there before. “I miss you, every day, but you can come to me. You still have time.”

The parhelion rises up with the sun, the morning light shifting over the endless grey expanse around them. The shadows on Lady Silence’s face move with it as the visage fades in and out with the sun’s flickering reflection. Harry suddenly feels so far away from her.

“I’d get lost,” he says. His throat hurts around the words, his chest an open wound. “I have no idea where you are. I’d die, before I found you.”

“ _No._ ” She lifts her hand, ungloved, toward his face. It stops just centimeters from his cheek. “You’ll _live_ , Goodsir. Harry. I’m going to save you this time, but you have to come to me.”

Harry wants to lean into her touch - to feel her skin against his - but he can’t let her disappear. “How do I find you?”

“Follow the center of the double suns. You’ll find me by the time it fades.” Her hand slowly falls. He feels its loss like a cut. “I want you warm.”

“I haven’t been warm in so long. I’m so cold that I can’t sleep.” He swallows. “I haven’t slept well, since you came to me. Do you remember?”

Lady Silence shuts her eyes, her whole face twisting, and Harry is sure that she’s going to cry. “Yes,” she whispers, voice cracking. “I remember.” There are strands of silver in her hair, which feel incongruous and unimportant at the same time.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“Don’t.” She looks, suddenly, back toward the horizon. The sun’s twins are losing some of their brilliance and so is she. “I have to go, soon.”

“You can’t,” begs Harry, going to grab her hand. He stops himself just before their fingers meet. “ _Please_. Please, don’t leave.” He thinks of Gibson’s body, Hickey’s knife. He feels sick.

“You can follow me. Follow the lights, Harry, and I’ll be there.” She smiles. “Then neither of us will be alone anymore.”

Harry can only watch as the tears spill over her cheeks. “How lonely are you, Lady Silence?”

She sobs. “I’m always alone. I hate it. I hate being alone, I hate the silence, I hate that _name_.”

“Then give me your name,” says Harry, desperately, “So I can’t hurt you anymore.”

She stares up at him, still weeping. “You never hurt me.”

“Lady-”

“Silna.” She grabs his hand, suddenly, and her hand is so warm and she squeezes his so tightly that he thinks she’ll leave bruises. Growing louder, she says, “My name is Silna. My name-”

She’s gone.

Harry staggers forward, into the space where she - Lady Silence, Silna, a hallucination, a dream - just was. “ _No_ ,” he gasps. She doesn’t reappear.

The parhelion is not as bright as before, but it still shines beside the sun, just above the horizon.

* * *

Silna doesn’t recognize him at first. She barely slept last night, after leaving the men and her friends’ bodies behind. The latter appear whenever she shuts her eyes, especially when she curls up to rest, and she wishes her father was there to hold her. She dreams that Goodsir is warming her up. Neither of them are there when she wakes.

She tries not to dwell on it, keeping her mind blissfully blank as she walks toward her uncle’s camp, where she knows that they usually stop this time of year. They can help her; _somebody_ will help her. It’s in that steadfast focus that the shambling figure appears out of the corner of her eye.

Silna ignores it, until it gets closer. Her chest goes tight when she thinks, _Tuunbaq_ , but she _knows_ that it’s not him. She realizes that it’s a person, then, alone and tall. It’s one of the pale men. It doesn’t ease the fear in her heart, but then he gets closer. Close enough for her to see. Her heart stops.

Her bag falls to the ground as she runs toward Goodsir. They don’t meet in the middle - he collapses before Silna can reach him, but she keeps going, falling to her knees beside him. She’s gasping for air as she turns him around, hands flying over his reddened face, his hair, the clothing that isn’t nearly enough to stop him from freezing. “I found you,” he says in Inuktitut, gazing up at her. “You’re here.”

Silna doesn’t have a response, even if she _could_ respond. She takes a deep breath to steady herself, before wrapping her arms around Goodsir’s middle to help him up, both of them stumbling to their feet. He sways, but she hangs on. They slowly make their way back to her bag, where she’ll warm him up best as she can, keep him safe until they make it to camp.

Goodsir’s cold nose brushes against her cheek. “Thank you. For saving me.”

Even beneath her furs, Silna can feel his ribs, how thin he is. She shuts her eyes against the feeling. _I haven’t saved you yet._ Aloud, she hums.

It’s not until she’s fed Goodsir some of the food, meagre as it is, and wrapped him up in the too-thin blanket Aglooka gave her that he speaks again. In English, he says, “Thank you, Silna.”

She stares at him. Her hands have stopped where they were warming his, but Goodsir doesn’t seem to notice, half-conscious in the cold. His teeth chatter around a smile as Silna wonders, distantly, how he knows her name. The other thought, more prescient, is that they can still reach camp before sundown.

Silna slings the bag over her shoulder again and helps Goodsir to his feet. His weight is heavy against her, but she can manage, and they walk.

_I have you_ , she thinks. _We have each other. I won’t question this._

Goodsir’s breath is warm on her cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, did y'know that a traditional Inuit diet of fresh raw meat [can give you all the vitamin C you need to fend off scurvy](https://www.jstor.org/stable/40508955?seq=1)? I just think that's neat.
> 
> My friend Zoe came up with autistic Goodsir and now every Goodsir I write is autistic because I love it so much. Also, I've headcanoned that the leader of the Netsilik camp in the show is Silna's uncle on her dad's side. I have a bunch of Silna lore floating around in my head that I sprinkle around in my fics, so if you're ever interested, feel free to ask me and I'll ramble to you about it!
> 
> I'm on tumblr at [diydumpsterdiving](https://diydumpsterdiving.tumblr.com/).


End file.
